Written by
Mark Rifkin

This Week in New York
June 13, 2001

 

This is not your Grandmother's Antigone. Anouilh's piece noir version of Sophocles' Greek tragedy was motivated by the Nazi occupation of France and the choice the French people had to either resist dictatorship or bend to the will of the totalitarian state. The One Year Lease production of the play begins with fuguelike music and a smoky open stage set that looks like a bizarre dungeon fashion show. In addition to the terrific one-two combination of Tella Storey as Antigone and Ariane Barbanell as Creon, other characters are voiced by offstage actors as spotlights focus on a certain piece of onstage clothing or a mannequin that represents the character. Be adventurous and try experimental theater in a part of town that features numerous small companies dedicated more to the aesthetics of theater than to selling souvenirs along with their garish productions that cost hundreds of dollars a person for tickets, parking, and dinner. Catch one of the last performances of the play June 13-15 at 8pm and on June 17th at 3pm before it moves across the sea for a week of shows in Athens, Greece. The postcard advertising the production features a photograph by renowned photographer, John Demos, who has exhibited his work in Thessaloniki, among other places.